Dad Blog: Relentless

One thing that has struck me about how difficult parenting can be is its utter relentlessness. It turns out that when you have a baby, they’re still in your house after several months. I’m beginning to suspect my son may even still be living with us in four, five years. There are no breaks. I mean, one of us will go for a walk or get coffee with a friend or something. Amy has seen two Broadway shows since Del was born, and I’ve been to a party and done some actor-y things on my own. We haven’t been shut-in with him since March. We’re living our lives:

Perhaps too much?

Eh. But those pictures provide a pretty good example of what I’m talking about: I can’t afford a hangover any more. Luckily I’ve hit the age where I don’t want to deal with hangovers anyway, but let’s say I go to a friend’s place and spend the evening drinking whiskey and get home at 1 AM. Guess what? Del doesn’t care. He’s getting up anywhere from 6:30-8 AM and he will want to eat and he will want attention and I’m not the sort of jerk to stay in bed and let my wife deal with it (yet). We’re a team, and it’s unfair for one of us to tag out without giving the other a heads-up and making some sort of plan to pick up the slack. We’ve all had a pretty solid cold already, and Del is currently getting over a little bounceback cold that Amy is probably catching again, but I’m dreading the first time Amy or I get truly knocked out of commission by sickness. Because Del rather inconsiderately won’t be taking a break on our account.

We’ve been extremely lucky that he has only required a few things above and beyond standard baby care. I certainly can’t complain about the hand we’ve been dealt, and he makes everything we’re doing worthwhile when he responds to us. He’s currently beginning to giggle which means we spend all day repeating the last thing that made him giggle like maniacs, desperate for another fix. He holds out on us, keeps us guessing when out of nowhere he’ll throw back his head and laugh at nothing. But the wheel keeps rolling, and we have to keep up or we’ll get run over.

Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he’s an actor and writer.